The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Film in the faux grindhouse style created by Tarantino and Rodriguez made as homage to the so-called nunsploitation genre. While operating on a low-budget, this has a great pulp energy that delivers in aces on all three title promises
A low-budget film served by some witty fanboy humour, decent fight choreography and unexpectedly good acting
Yet another in the fad for 19870s/0s horror remakes, a merely efficient revival that reduces the wild, outré scares of Wes Craven’s original to conveyor belt shocks
Clever concept of five people trapped in an elevator where one of them is The Devil. One of the better films to come out under the much debased name of M. Night Shyamalan who lends his name as producer
The second of the Twilight films where the moderately grounded original is blown up into the near laughable with the ridiculously over-the-top hyper-sexualised posturing of its male leads
This has a similar scenario to Michael Bay’s The Island but also at 180 degree remove – where Bay was loud and bludgeoning, this approaches the idea as a subtle British childhood pastoral
German low-budget film about a resurrected sorcerer, this goes out on a wild edge, winds everything up to 15 on the dial and positively wades in blood, gore and torture scenes
I never much cared for Nanny McPhee. This is a sequel that replicates the original in fairly much the same amount mix of plot elements, slapstick sequences and nonsensical absurdism
A misfire from the usually reliable Wes Craven, this drearily traipses through a slasher/supernatural plot that lacks any surprises or Craven’s characteristic atmosphere
The gonzo Japanese splatter film is one of the insanely demented corners of genre cinema today. This is a prime example, filled with mind-bogglingly perverse anatomical rearrangements and attachments, the screen is awash with blood and everything directed with a mad cartoonish energy
This has almost nothing in common with the 1980 film it is supposedly based on. Instead we get a home invasion film where Darren Lynn Bousman of Saw sequel fame shows that constant scenes of brutality and torture are all that he has in his arsenal
Australian exploitation homage that is like a collision between Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! and a monster movie. Low-budget but this has an authentic recapturing of the spirit of trash cinema
Cloverfield by way of Stalker – a unique and original film about zones on Earth overrun by alien creatures. Director Gareth Edwards creates his own effects that far surpass many big budget efforts
Another low-budget monster movie for the Syfy Channel. Between Sean Patrick Flanery’s unconvincing adventurer hero and the filmmaker’s failure to even vaguely approximate what Mongolia or its locals look like, this quickly slides down into a tatty, indifferently made copy of Tremors
A sequel to Alexandre Aja’s Mirrors that abandons most of the basics of the first film and strips everything down to a series of gory, novelty deaths
Wildly experimental South Korean adaptation of the Kafka story about a man turning into an insect – a film shot entirely by the director in bed with the camera pointed at his feet
In his last ever produced screenplay, cult director Larry Cohen turns in a wonderfully playful script with Matthew Lillard as a screenwriting lecturer harassed by a killer only to find real-life doesn’t obey the same rules that screenplays do
DreamWorks animated film about a super-villain that might have worked better had its thunder not been stolen by the far superior Despicable Me a few months earlier
The first sequel to The Asylum’s Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and marginally a better film. This is less sparing with the cheap effects, while in every other regard it plants tongue-in-cheek and tries to make a virtue out of the sheer ridiculousness of the action
If you could take it seriously, Mega Piranha would be a strong contender for a bad movie; however, its awareness of its own absurd shortcomings becomes its saving grace. The sight of giant piranha skipping down rivers and impaling themselves in the sides of buildings has an appealing delirium
A documentary about the US exploitation film industry in the Philippines in the 1970s filled with mind-boggling anecdotes that uncover a wild west of unregulated filmmaking
British director Adam Mason has been a rising name of note in recent years. Here he makes a Jekyll and Hyde story with Andrew Howard as a mild-mannered man at war with his own evil half
This feels like a remake of the Roger Corman post-holocaust cavemen cheapie Teenage Caveman. It cannot escape that at heart it is never more than a B movie about caveman fighting mutants
Documentary about the making of Dark Star, depicting its’ journey from student film to cult film. The only disappointment is the absence of key players John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon
Surprisingly good English-language remake of Let the Right One In, the first release from the revived Hammer Films. It is extremely faithful to the original, while also recreating it with some subtlety
An absurd film where angels conduct a war on Earth, which comes amid much in the way of gunfire and creature effects. Directed by a former visual effects supervisor.
Zack Snyder makes an exquisite motion-capture animated film for adults about talking owls. This has a story that comes with a sweeping mythic arc
Seven people wake up in a deserted London with no memory of who they are only to find that something is stalking them. An intriguing hook let down by a tired and overused ending
An exorcism film made Found Footage-style with Patrick Fabian as a conman exorcist. This is constantly confounding everything one expects of the genre with considerable cleverness
Live-action film adaptation of the popular animated tv series, this was widely seen as a disaster for M. Night Shyamalan. I am one of the few that liked the film for Shyamalan’s superbly designed world
Whether we asked for it or not, director Bruce LaBruce gives us the world’s first gay pornographic zombie film in which a zombie finds it can revive the dead by having sex with them
Czech puppet fantasy about a toy’s journey through a forest filled with a bizarre menagerie of creatures that are both cutely affecting and sinisterly threatening in the Maurice Sendak vein
Disappointing adaptation of a classic noir novel where neither Michael Winterbottom nor a blank Casey Affleck do much to get inside the noirish mood or the troubled central character of a psychopathic sheriff’s deputy
Spanish home invasion thriller that comes with a moderate degree of brutality and tension but ultimately feels more like a set of choices in a survival horror videogame than an engaging thriller
One of several films around the same time about wannabes without powers playing at being superheroes. Matthew Vaughn delivers a film that falls between witty deflation of and a celebration of nerdy fantasy
Gregg Araki film that centres around sexually conflicted university student Thomas Dekker and his various liaisons amid witches, a doomsday weapon, cults and premonitions
Second of the Bruce Timm animated films based on DC’s Justice League, this has been construed as a Mirror Universe take that pits the Justice League up against villainous versions of themselves
A demented Jeffrey Lau comedy that seems to have no limits on how silly it is willing to be, while parodying just about every other film made around the same time
Produced by Guillermo Del Toro, this Spanish film is an extremely good work about a blind woman stalked by a killer, featuring a script of sharp twists and grippingly suspenseful directorial set-pieces
This is an adaptation of the DC comic-book character of a supernatural avenging Western gunslinger that fails to burn with the grim mood it should have
A puppet film about a satiric Nazi invasion of England in World War II. Imagine It Happened Here by way of Team America. This has its amusements but is uneven
A comedy involving murder and ghosts set in London’s Little India. An exceedingly lightweight comedy that never does anything unexpected with its material
Iron Man was very enjoyable. True to typical superhero sequel form, this complicates the original by introducing so many new villains and characters that it becomes an overcrowded narrative juggling act
A modest German-made film not dissimilar to Cube in which a man wakes up inside a labyrinth of locked rooms and must find a means of escape
On a pure plot level, this is largely a generic haunted house story but director James Wan creates an eerie atmosphere and manages to undeniably jangle the audience’s nerves on a number of occasions
Hideo Nakata, director of Ring, offers his take on reality tv shows – where contestants are locked up Big Brother-style and encouraged to kill one another. The film comes with much homage to classic murder mysteries
Christopher Nolan’s The Matrix. Concerning an action theme that invade people’s dreams, this is a bold, brilliantly original SF film driven by ideas – a film that succeeds beautifully on all levels
The harrowing 1970s raped woman on a revenge spree film is given the remake treatment, although is watered down in many key areas. The revenge scenes however are played up for a particular nastiness
Overrated South Korean revenge thriller about a detective obsessively pursuing a serial killer that has a mild level of ultra-violence going for it but otherwise fails to grip or dig into a psychological darkness
An SF film with minimal resources – just two characters in a desert – that deliver a modest variant on the Enemy Mine scenario about an alien and human enemy stranded on a planet
Popular animated adaptation of a children’s book. This hits all the right story arcs and in sufficiently likeable measure to work amiably. Two sequels and a live-action remake followed.
A raucous and vulgar, if at times undeniably funny, comedy where John Cusack and three friends use a hot tub at a resort that causes them to travel back in time to the 1980s.
Adam Wingard has been a director on the rise in the last few years, although his films often feel as though they could have been more than they are. This mumblecore serial killer film is his most satisfying and fully achieved work so far
David Lynch’s daughter Jennifer is a much better director than she is given recognition for. She disowned this work about a snake goddess taken on human form nevertheless creates a film that is equal parts lushly sensual and madcap lunacy
Clint Eastwood tackles the afterlife in a drama following multiple storylines. A film made with earnest serious ambition but one where Eastwood finds surprisingly little to say about the issue
A mind-bogglingly wacky entry in the gonzo Japanese splatter film featuring a crazed bloodbath as Japan is overrun by zombies. This goes frequently nuts featuring vehicles and plans made up of zombie bodies
A Singaporean entry in the Found Footage genre with a camera crew searching a supposedly haunted abandoned hospital. Constant hyped build-up without much payoff
Hatchet was a homage to the 1980s slasher film that had a mild amusement. In the sequels, Adam Green upped the number of genre cameos and in-jokes, while pushing the gore effects to an extreme
The penultimate chapter in the Harry Potter series surprisingly strips out most of the effects and is much slower, more character driven, while moving the saga towards an epic conclusion
A compilation of shorts from anime directors set in the Halo videogame universe. The first two episodes have a breathtaking scale but the others are bitsy stories but nothing standout
Adult actress Tori Black plays a straight role as a hooker who goes to a meet with a client in a motel room where claims that he is a werewolf
Quebecois (French-speaking Canadian) historical werewolf film. The plot proves entertaining in its whisplash reversals, although the film’s provision of a werewolf falls down amid some ratty CGI effects
Jonathan Swift’s classic tale of a man in a land of miniature people is turned into a comedy vehicle for Jack Black and outfitted with a series of vulgar and pop culture gags
A surprisingly good little film about a group of friends being infected by parasites escaped from a laboratory. Confidant assured horror filmmaking with some way out effects.
An Australian entry in the spate of superheroes with no powers films a la the likes of Kick-Ass, Defendor and Super. This plays out as a quirky but never particularly funny romantic comedy
Another in the spate of gonzo Japanese splatter films. A cartoony OTT vigilante film with a Gothic schoolgirl avenger, featuring ridiculous action and splatter set-pieces
A disappointing tv mini-series adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novel, which has been (largely) played as a straight adventure with the usual Pratchett comedy taking a backseat
An ‘illustrated film’ – essentially comic-book panels with voiceover narration. The story about gods inhabiting a burned-out future is far more ambitious than can be crammed into the film
This has the great idea of paranormal investigators investigating the home of real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy. Alas, Gacy is of zero relevance and the film no more that a tatty Found Footage effort
Excruciating CGI cute animals film where animals gang up to stop Brendan Fraser redeveloping their forest. Essentially a 1970s Nature’s Revenge film by way of the slapstick family-friendly violence of Home Alone
Not to be confused with the Disney animated film, this is a harrowing survival drama from Adam Green about three characters trapped in mid-air on a ski chairlift
A low-budget entry in the 2000s fad for true-life serial killer films. This is based on William Bonin who around the L.A. freeways in a van and abducted and killed young men
The greatly underrated Sean Tretta makes a Frankenstein film – a modernised one that place in a research laboratory where the monster is resurrected with expanded mental abilities
Very nicely produced BBC retelling of the H.G. Wells novel that conducts an extremely faithful adaptation of the story and captures a perfect period sense of wonder
Uwe Boll seems to be improving. Here he has abandoned action for a character-driven drama about the appearance of an ambiguous stranger heralding the Biblical end of the world
Hong Kong cinema specialises in a type of frenetic, high-energy slapstick. This – a romance set around a swimming competition in which the girl thinks she has been blessed by a water god – is not one of the more inspired
Controversial Japanese film about a virus that causes members of a family to engage in gay incest. This is perhaps the dullest taboo-breaking film I have ever sat through
Luc Besson adapts a French comic-book – sort of a female version of Tintin – with uneven but generally amiable regard. The result is somewhere between an Indiana Jones adventure and the quirkness of an Amelie
A modest and effective low-budget reworking of the classic Enemy Mine delivered with a quite reasonable intelligence and professionalism
A rare Bollywood venture into science-fiction – a completely madcap android intelligence/amok film that features some wildly imaginative action scenes, all set amid typical Bollywood song and dance/romance numbers
Fascinating no-budget South Korean film about a mysterious catastrophe and an even more mysterious godlike stranger who appears in its aftermath. Enigma like the best of Andrei Tarkovsky
A film remake of one of the great tv series of the 1980s. A complete betrayal by the original’s director Martin Campbell that strips all the politics and simply makes it into a Mel Gibson revenge film
The third of the Twilight films. This extrudes the dramatic irresolution of the last film’s cliffhanger – should Bella marry Edward or does she really love Jacob? – with over-padded momentousness
US film adaptation of a cult Italian comic-book about a private eye who investigates the supernatural, this comes out like a weak episode of tv’s Angel where a potential worthwhile idea descends to lame humour
Extraordinary anime where the members of an after school club secretly harbour great powers. From there, this expands out with reality-bending scope
One of the earliest entries in the gonzo killer shark fad, predating Sharknado even. This comes produced by Roger Corman and concerns a prehistoric shark that is revived
A blatant copy of Saw, albeit without the Torture Porn sadism, with people imprisoned in a cellar forced to kill one another. An oddly unconvincing film that fails to generate any tension or even conviction
Crime film that takes place amid cardboard sets and toy robots. A puzzlingly surreal effort that seems more suited to an MTV clip for an indie band than a full-length film
Tsui Hark returns to form in this lush Chinese-backed historical drama where his wildly fantastical martial arts combine with the story of the true-life detective De Renjie/Detective Dee
An animated effort about a mad scientist and three orphans. One entered this with zero expectation only for it to unexpectedly emerge as a side-splitting and completely charming pleasure
Amateur low-budget production about mysterious happenings in the aftermath of an alien invasion. This has many ideas but none of them much coalesce into a plot
The first of three sequels (actually a prequel) to Paul W.S. Anderson’s Death Race, this gives the origins of Frankenstein and the Death Race. This rehashes much of the first film as generic direct-to-dvd fodder
Low-budget film about a killer and his teenage apprentice. The film benefits from a well-seasoned Brad Dourif and Jeremy Sumpter, the grown-up Peter Pan, who gives a fine brooding performance
Fascinating true story about a college student who struck up a correspondence with serial killer John Wayne Gacy and fashioned himself according to Gacy’s victim profile so as to get closer to him
The debut film from the Soska Sisters – a demented road movie – is scrappy, all over the place and highly uneven but shows the two are definitely going places
This could easily be called Cowboys vs Zombies. A low-budget effort that is tame on the zombie front but makes great effort and is served by some well-drawn characters
A zombie film that stands out from shuffling horde by dint of the fact that it takes place in Africa and is a survival horror work that takes itself seriously rather than tongue-in-cheek. Low key but achieves some often haunted effect
Low-budget UFO/alien abduction film that mostly this just retreads familiar material, although it does evince a certain interesting state of rubber reality about what is happening
a low-budget SF film set in an underground world ruled by a caste of genetically engineered people concerning who now face rebellion from among the lower classes
This feels like a mockbuster thrown together to exploit the popularity of the tv series Lost concerning an island haunted by a sinister cloud of smoke. The scenario quickly collapses into absurdity.